Lady Bears’ top point guard is ready for tipoff
Baylor’s Niya Johnson, top ranked point guard in the NCAA, will play against the No. 2 guard today.

see Sports, page 7

The Baylor Lariat
baylorlariat com

WE’RE THERE WHEN YOU CAN’T BE

David Crowder will perform at the Woodlands this weekend.
see A&E, page 5
He took time out of his tour for a Q&A with the Lariat.

Friday | March 27, 2015

Gather at
the Brazos
McLane Stadium to
host historic service
on Palm Sunday
By Kalli Damschen
Staff Writer

Associated Press

Authorities investigate a tractor-trailer that crashed into an overpass under construction on Thursday, in Salado. Department of Transportation spokeswoman Becky Ozuna says
the truck hit a beam being used to build a bridge across Interstate 35 on Thursday morning.

18-wheeler slams into bridge
By Reubin Turner
City Editor

Skye Duncan | Lariat Photo Editor

The bridge collapse led to a I-35 being closed from Temple to Salado and a back up of cars
along 95 Thursday afternoon.

One person was killed and
three others were injured when an
18-wheeler smashed into a bridge on
Interstate 35 on Thursday morning
in Salado.
The event caused two beams to
dislodge and fall onto the highway
hitting several vehicles and closing
the highway in both directions.
Clark Davis, a 32-year-old Arlington man who was driving a
pickup truck on which the beams fell
died at the scene, according to the
Texas Department of Transportation.
The other victims were taken to
Baylor Scott & White Hospital in
Temple with what authorities said
were non-life-threatening injuries,
but further details weren’t immediately available.
Late Thursday afternoon officials

said two of the injured victims had
been released from the hospital.
The third was still admitted in
stable condition.
Traffic was backed up for miles
along the interstate, which is a primary north-south artery through
Texas, Donnie Adams of the Bell
County Sheriff ’s Office said.
“We’ve got more vehicles than
we’ve got space for,” said Adams, noting that the area is undergoing heavy
construction.
He said the stretch of roadway
is being expanded to three lanes in
both directions and includes new
overpasses, exits and other work, he
said.
According to Bell County Sheriff ’s Office twitter account, however,
I-35 around the Salado area was still
closed at that time.
The Associated Press contributed
to this report.

New York building
collapse injures 12;
gas blast suspected
By Jonathan Lemire
and Colleen Long
Associated Press

NEW YORK — An apparent
gas explosion leveled an apartment
building, largely destroyed another
and launched rubble and shards of
glass across streets in the heart of
Manhattan’s trendy East Village on
Thursday, injuring a dozen people.
Smoke could be seen and smelled
for miles.
Restaurant diners ran out of
their shoes and bystanders helped
one another to escape the midafternoon blast, which damaged four
buildings as flames shot into the
air, witnesses said. Passers-by were
hit by debris and flying glass, and
bloodied victims were aided as
they sat on sidewalks and lay on
the ground, they said.
“It was terrifying — absolutely
terrifying,” said Bruce Finley, a
visitor from San Antonio, Texas,
who had just taken a photo of his
food at a restaurant known for

Vol.115 No. 84

its French fries when he felt the
explosion next door. “It just happened out of the blue. ... We were
shaking even an hour, hour and a
half later.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said preliminary evidence suggested a gas
explosion amid plumbing and gas
work inside the building that collapsed was to blame.
A plumber was doing work
connected to a gas service upgrade, and inspectors from utility Con Edison had been there to
check on a planned meter installation an hour before the fire, company President Craig Ivey said.
But the work failed the inspection,
partly because a space for the new
meters wasn’t big enough, and the
inspectors said gas couldn’t be introduced to that part of the building, Con Ed said.
The state Department of Public
Service was monitoring Con Ed’s
response.
The fire happened a little over
a year after a gas explosion in a

Thousands of worshipers are expected to fill
McLane Stadium for the Gathering, a historic
Palm Sunday worship service, at 5 p.m. Sunday.
The Gathering, named from the hymn “Shall
We Gather at the River?” which will be sung at
the event. Kevin Harrison, pastor of Victorious Life Church and lead administrator of the
Gathering, said he hopes the event will provide
a sense of unity.
“This is not just about having a service,” Harrison said. “It’s the genesis of a movement of
unity. We see the division in our world. How in
the world can our world come together and be
united if the church isn’t?”
The official website describes the Gathering’s
goal as building a bridge between the church
and the community by bringing people together
for an evening of worship.
“The theme is the body of Christ coming together to remind ourselves that we have much
more in common than we have differences,”
said John Durham, pastor at Highland Baptist
Church and head of security and marketing for
the Gathering. “We desire to lift up the name of
Jesus across Central Texas.”
Harrison also said the goal of the Gathering is to bring Christians together, regardless of
their differences.
“We want to see unity in the body of Christ,”
Harrison said. “We want to bring down the walls
of denominationalism, of races, of ages. We just
want to come together in spite of whatever our
differences are.”
One of the special guests at the event is Dr.
Tony Evans, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. He is also the founder and president
of the Urban Alternative, a Christian broadcast
ministry that aims to help people find God’s
purpose for their lives.
Harrison said Evans is the perfect speaker
for the purpose of this event.
“For years he’s been a voice of unity,” Harrison said. “He’s talented, he’s gifted and he’s
spoken to audiences as large as a million people
before. He really captures the heart of what we’re
about, and it’s the heart of unity.”
Other special guests include Israel HoughSEE

Smoke billows from the scene of a large fire and a partial building collapse
on Thursday in the East Village neighborhood of New York. Orange flames
and black smoke are billowing from the facade and roof of the building.

building in East Harlem killed
eight people and injured about 50.
A National Transportation Safety
Board report released last week
said a leak reported just before
the deadly blast may have come
from a 3-year-old section of plas-

tic pipe rather than a 127-year-old
cast-iron segment that came under
scrutiny in the immediate aftermath.
De Blasio noted no one had
reported a gas leak before ThursSEE

BLAST, page 4

First copy free. Additional copies 25 cents each.

The Student Senate unanimously voted to make alterations
in the electoral code to clarify
unclear wording at its meeting
Thursday.
The Electoral Commission
interpreted the code to say that
candidates and their campaign
workers cannot post anything
promoting a campaign on their
personal social media accounts.
Social media pages dedicated
specifically to the campaign, however, were allowed.
When the commission announced this interpretation at a
mandatory candidate meeting
Tuesday night, there were several
people who were upset. The commission also said non-campaign
workers could not post anything
on their personal social media
accounts, but it changed its interpretation Wednesday in an email
to the candidates.
Port Barre, La.,

sophomore Lindsey Bacque
helped author the bill that changes and clarifies the wording of the
Electoral Code. Originally, the
code did not make any provisions
or give direction for candidates or
campaign worker’s personal accounts.
If any candidate violated this
rule, the punishment would be
a hearing by the Electoral Commission and then with Judicial
Affairs.
“A lot of the candidates running for student body officers felt
that there were some things that
needed to be clarified,”Bacque
said. “It was a joint effort.”
According to the bill, any candidate, campaign worker or anyone not officially affiliated with a
campaign may post to personal
social networking pages or specific campaign pages regarding
student government elections or
asking for votes.
Although the Senate voted to
approve the bill, it is not effective
SEE